*Gasp* at the wisteria! After an off year when it was near nonexistent. I’ve heard it isn’t too good for the trees but they seem fine. The days turned a little coolish, so the fragrance intoxication wasn’t as intense as you’d expect.

Climbing tall

Lavender and green mixing it up

Cloudy skies but it’s still fun to get outside

Ladderback woodpecker, through the haze of a window:

Ladderback Woodpecker doesn’t know how close I am

Judas tree/crabapple:

Flowering crabapple AFAIK

Flowers in the sky

Rained on violets:

Violets are my favorites!

but they were OK:

Fast purple

Madame Curious, opinionated feral, sounds off:

Madame Curious: “I told y’all this before!”

Madame Curious on the threshold. She’s now a contented house cat. I’ve seen feral cats slowly sweeten, so many times!

Madame Curious: “That fishy food is where?”

Spring checklist: Judas tree: check. Violets: check. Feral (?) cat: check. Bumble bees: careening fast, get out of their way! Honeybees: here thirty years ago, but gone for many years. Lizards and skinks: not seen this year. Wisteria: what’s got into those vines? Note: maybe ask someone who actually knows plants. I just live on their turf.

Lavender tangle:

Wisteria, 2015

Wisteria, 2015, #2 of, way too many to bother counting

Aloft in trees:

Reaching for the sky

Packed in close!

Two of these plumes are a differing shade of lavender from all the rest:

Intensity between lavender and violet

Grand and glorious, the petals began to fall:

On its way

With intact sweetgum seedpod from last autumn:

All seasons can be read on the ground

I was having a health issue since the early part of the year and it smacked me down while petals foamed up, swelled, dropped. I felt so bad, when a tree frog landed on a window, I didn’t even get up to take photos. That’s normally a huge photo opp.

Feeling wistful and sad while snapping the treeline through the vehicle window. One moment when I could view with senses unclouded. Can’t say the same for the sky.

2015 partly cloudy, very early spring

Every spring while driving, there’s an instant we both recognize. When the glow on the trees reaches a certain intensity, it’s time to quote Robert Frost in 3, 2, 1 … “Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold … nothing gold can stay”. Shortly afterwards this year, I lost out on full spring.

Iris were sorta flat ‘n’ saggin’ by the time I got there. (I know it’s out of focus but I love the color.)

We’re well into kitten season! Rescuers may find a few radial hypoplasia cats, so I’m reposting my article about our late, spirited little RH kitty, Little Buddy. It tells some of his story and includes tips for caring for these special needs pets.

Also, please do click on the link below to see an adorable RH black cat who is up for adoption! He’s available through the rescue group at the link. He’s located in Michigan.

Update: It’s with a heavy heart that I have to say, Little Buddy went to the Rainbow Bridge on September 19, 2014. He was almost 19, and had lived a long and mostly healthy life bringing joy to all our family. We are holding him close in our hearts. I can only hope his story here will help other special needs kitties find homes. Thanks to everyone, here and on other sites, for your kind expressions of sympathy.

Little Buddy, our cat with radial hypoplasia (RH), travels close to the floor. He is nearing 19 years of age. In 1995, my late Mom found a stray cat, along with her two kittens, living in her shed. This tuxie momcat had an elegant face with a white stripe down her nose. Her extra toes put her over the typical feline toe count, making her a polydactyl. One kitten, a tabby, had…

Cool cat Bud tucks himself into the quiet and chill of late February, a few weeks back. I grab an odd patch of clear hours in an otherwise jammed up schedule, to post his ‘last of winter’ pictures.

Big Bright-Eyed Boy

This is the brightest photo; the room illumination is mostly lightbulb, with a little sunlight.

Budster as the evening darkens

I like this darker picture, too. Bud, being a cat and therefore having sensing mechanisms humans don’t possess, no doubt feels spring coming in February. He grins and purrs and tells me nothing, going “Ho Hum”; he keeps his cool, but he’s known the forest has been up to something. A week or so later, I get around to noticing changes in the light.

Late Winter Canopy

Taken right after I took Bud’s photos, here the pines are green as ever, the deciduous trees are still sans foliage. Their quiet branches wouldn’t be about to spout off, would they? Now, tree frogs we call rainfrogs are singing before a rain; early bloomers are spotted with pinks and magentas; early leafers have misted the branches with fresh greens. Spring is fixin’ to break out all over!

But it’s still officially winter, so, to make sure this cool but proud cat guy keeps his composure, I better post his pictures quick!

Our big Bud cat, ace sunsoaker, wants to be the headline for a change. He’s tired of being at the tail-end of posts about the creek, or art, or whatever. Here, impossibly handsome Bud basks in some January rays, on important papers. “Your research is mine, it’s in my sunny spot.”

Bud the smoothie

“Say what? Food’s ready?” My husband and I don’t actually plan to argue with him, but if we really need for him to move, we can break out some canned food.

Budster gleaming

Magnificence by Bud, highlights by, Sun, ‘soft focus’ photo by Leah.

Bud gleams and dreams

Bud’s dark fur looks black in many photos, but he is actually a deep sable brown, unusual for a street cat. Bright sunlight brings out his true coloration. Bud’s a sun seeker, like most cats. Alabama winter sun is gorgeous, when it bothers to show up.

Having appeased Bud’s pride – for now – I’ll depart for other projects. When I can shake free, or er – Bud gets a craving for attention, we’ll be back!

An all night rain amounting to about four inches put every area waterway into flood stage. I decided to come out of hibernation long enough to get some pictures, even though I don’t much like winter. On January 4th, 2015, here’s what our creek looked like.

No end in sight

The temps were mild, but a little on the cool side for me. The sky was overcast. The water was boiling mad, rough and moving fast. Much faster than it looks in the pictures. We used zoom to get these photos. Don’t get close to any flood waters! You could get hurt falling into water like this.

Ruffled water

We know the terrain alongside of this creek well, and we’re experienced woods walkers, so we felt we could photograph safely.

Those are choppy, strong currents. We’re actually looking downstream in all the photos above.

Looking upstream in the next two photos:

Gulp!

High water close up

Currents at play

No worries about our house flooding, we’re on higher ground.

Another view

Sand build-up in motion

Another angle

I usually think winter is so blah and drab, but I became fond of the color range in these photos.

Becoming captivated by a flood

The creek had crested earlier, probably during the night some time. We could see it had been out of its banks even further, from the slicked over vegetation, soggy sand, and deposited driftwood. In fact, we had placed two chairs along the banks and the water had washed one of them completely away, before receding to to the level we see now.

Fungus.

Fungus likes the damp

Leftover autumn color.

Lone leaves over ruffled sand

Run-off drains through the forest, opening up rivulets.

Sunken pine needles.

Pine flooring with freshly downed twigs from the night’s wind.

We came back slightly chilled; Bud the Cat made it plain he stayed cozy and toasty warm. The following day the sun was shining through the window, kissing his whiskers.

In the southeast US deciduous leaves say “So long” to chlorophyll as late as mid-November. Trees slowly add some reds, oranges, and golds to the remaining greens; the water grabs any hue that heads its way, and voila! Radiant bands of color ripple down the creek.

Leaves, ripples, every whichaway

Leaf mats jazzin’ up the creek. The view from farther away:

Looking downstream

Low water this year

The long view:

Heading downstream

Sounds made by the water are soothing. Leaves got themselves in a jam.

Inside the leaf jam

The gang’s all here.

Leaves drifting on their way.

Off we go

Some leaves sink to the murky depths:

Slow currents

Still water running

The view thickens

We have to step around twigs and stickers, commonly found in wild woods like these. We slap branches away at face level, too. These woods are dense and the going’s a bit rough, but I can still walk here. Some of the terrain alongside the creek is even more rugged.

Treetops

Treetops and tangles

We’re leaving it to you, Evergreen … for a time.

Winter greens, always around

Bright accents liven up the landscape

We hear owls hooting, first one, then another from a different direction, then a third hoot from off another way. A deer snorts as we move closer, rustles the foliage, snorts again. Dusk is on the way.

These wild waters and the forest are right out my door, in my yard, and I know them well. I have been fortunate to live here. Why would anyone want to tear down woods like these? We hear of it way too often. Here’s a link to my environmental essay, “Tributary”:

Up close and personal on a small creek: a chance to play with the visuals by zooming in close on the water. These photos aren’t truly in focus, but the rippling creates some color blends I find pleasing. Nature has ways of mixing and placing color that always has painters in hot pursuit. Cameras don’t capture the natural color data exactly as the human eye sees it, but sometimes retain a high degree of that balance, IMO.

Leafy dreams

Soft floating

Moving along

The view upstream:

Upstream

Coming in from the woods, we always face this question: “Where y’all been? I’ve been holding down the fort!”

The Bobcat in Autumn

Budster, aka “The Bobcat”

Now we’ve had a night-long rain, and the creek is roarin’. The floating leaves washed away; trees just kept shedding. Nature, always in motion.

Looking back at the leafy months, I’m drawn to the shiny stuff like a crow would be, at the creek when afternoon sun turns water into neon, the greens in the light.

Sparkles:

Bedazzled

Creekbanking on a dreamy late afternoon

Creeky views, with the banks and the long flows:

Stream and downstream 1

Stream and downstream 2

Still waters

We keep seeing sudden ripples, hearing splats; my husband gets close enough to see one small green frog jumping from land to water. Rains knock tree frogs out of the trees and onto our door, where we see the frogs hanging on. Their upper bodies are a yellow-green with a sheen like enamel, the underparts are whitish.

Small frogs make big ripples

There’s so much to photograph during the months of hot gleaming greens glowing on the branch, and I can’t stand to leave a sparkle unrecorded. So I hope y’all will stay with me for this long haul of a last of summer post.

Trees work their solar powered sparklers

The ripples, bold and green

Trees and their leaves help the sun make glitter all over branch water.

Sparkles spice up shadows

Hot greens!

Leaves galore, where it all comes from:

Just outside . . .

I hate to see this go. I’m so partial to this densely packed 3-D mosaic of leaves, pine needles, and light. I even like the heat – far better than cold. Besides, consistent heat during the summer usually means fewer severe weather alerts.

Clouds on a rainy day

Seeing the greens looking worn out and fixin’ to leave gives me the blues. Not even the red yellow and orange mixtures to come won’t fix this. I’ve got verte-igo, as I noted in a post last year. “That old green magic . . . ”

Within those leaves:

In June I saw something with red bouncing through the forest air. When it landed it looked like this:

Underwing Moth

Not actually a two-inch spaceship full of tiny aliens! It’s an Underwing Moth, but I can’t tell whether it’s a Walnut, Copper, or Penitent, or Some Other Underwing. It’s not an exact match for any of the photos I’ve found. The red underwings of this species are seen only in flight.

Blue Dasher Dragonfly. Dragonflies were known as ‘mosquito hawks’ when my husband was growing up. Chow down, guys and gals!:

Blue Dasher in Sun

Looking for bugs in all the wrong places. And one lizard:

The following guys or gals chose building materials for their hangouts or for hovering. Go figure! Not my favorite surroundings to photograph wild critters, but it’s no use arguing with ’em. They always just tell you to buzz off . . .

The Tiger Bee Fly:

Tiger Bee Fly

Grape Leaf Folder or Grape Leaf Roller on a ceiling! Just so wrong! LOL

Grape Leaf Roller or Grape Leaf Folder

Blue dasher with board background:

Blue Dasher Dragonfly

Lizard, probably Brown Anole:

Brown Anole

I’m in town some days, where we have Crepe Myrtle that’s still blooming:

Crepe Myrtle

We feed a crabby tabby of a feral cat, Madame Curious. This is what I usually see of her. Nice view of those pretty hind feet, MC!

Madame Curious, feral masonry expert

Once in a blue moon I get a pic like this:

Madame Curious, feral sweetie

At home, Bud is here to remind me that his pictures are the most important:

Categories

Meta

About the author

I live near a creek in a forest, in close observation and awe of the wildlife outside, as well as the domestic cats and dog of the household. I'm writer Leah Alford. For more information, click the "About" button above.

Copyright Notice; Links and Other Sources Statement; Ads

All text and photos originated by Catwoods Porch Party are copyrighted by Leah Alford as "catwoods", and by Leah Alford. Links to the blog posts are permissable when Catwoods Porch Party is clearly designated as the author, with clear and appropriate direction to the original content; written permission is required. Excerpts may or may not be permissible depending on circumstances; I as author will review those, and must be contacted for that review. Please do not quote, reproduce, or copy photos or text without contacting me first via a comment on this blog, to ask for written permission. Comments are moderated and I will get back to you as fast as possible depending on health and other factors.

Catwoods Porch Party will at times link to its own posts within this blog.

Catwoods Porch Party will also link to and reference other websites written by other authors as credited and copyrighted within those sites. Catwoods Porch Party will sometimes cite written and spoken sources authored by others. Other sources linked to and cited are solely the work of other authors and are protected under their copyrights.

Catwoods Porch Party does not endorse the content of other sources referenced - written or spoken works, websites, videos, or audio recordings.

Ads: To recoup their costs in providing me with a free blog, Wordpress places ads at the end of my posts at times. This is entirely fair. But I do not receive any funds from these ads, and I do not choose the ads. I don't even see them unless I check on my blog from another location. I do not choose or endorse these ads in any way.